Kidney was damaged as a child - how would that affect pregnancy?

[MrsSaint]

Hey there,
I am 21 and when I was 9 I was hit by a police officer on a motor cycle, causing me to fly about 25 feet and at the time I was told that I bruised my right kidney and slightly damaged my left one. Well, I had to spend almost 7 years on a low-sodium diet (500 mg a day) because somehow the sodium was stripping calcium from my bones and ripping at my right kidney. I was taking off of the diet when I was 16 and was told I was fine, but I was warned that my kidney would never heal fully and that it did retain some permanent damage and that there would always be the chance that I would have a kidney failure later in the future.

My husband and I have been working on our family plan and are hoping to start our family in about 4 years. However, I have no idea what testing I need to go through to see if my right kidney can even make it through the stress of pregnancy. My OBGYN had mentioned that he would not want to recommend me trying to carry if there was even a slight risk of a kidney failure. However, since he is not a high-risk specialist, he couldn't really tell me where to go from there.

So, what should I do and what kind of test should I request? Or does it seem too high risk to begin with?

[AnnieBrooke]

It doesn't seem automatically high risk to me.  The reason people are able to donate kidneys and still live is that we don't need all the kidney capacity we have.  It's at least worth talking to a specialist about.

[Ashelen]

Wow what an awful thing to happen to a child! I'm so sorry, it must be frightening to not know what the future holds.

I would contact a urologist or a nephrologist and go from there...and ask them to check your kidney function and give you a risk/benefit analysis in regards to future pregnancies.

Best of luck!